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Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt are back with a third round of funny, bizarre and brain-bending cartoons with The Animation Show.

Beavis and Butthead kick off the DVD, and seeing them onscreen filled me with a wave of nostalgia. Sadly, their appearance was short lived; the DVD then launched into one of the most hilariously, randomly violent cartoons I have ever seen: “Rabbit”.

“Rabbit” watches like Dick and Jane on crack. Two overtly violent children stumble across a small, golden, live idol who has mysterious powers that turn random objects into other random objects. The kids try to make a buck off the idol, but eventually learn that the gods are not often kind.

“City Paradise”, the second cartoon, is a whimsical little short, vaguely reminiscent of Mirrormask. We follow a young woman on a journey to a new country, where everyone speaks a dialect of Crazy Dwarf from Twin Peaks Who Later Was On Carnivale. Cute with a rose-colored kind of undercurrent, “City Paradise” was pretty good, but nothing compared to the next short, “Everything Will Be Okay”.

“Everything Will Be Okay” watches like a stream of consciousness poem about societal awkwardness that becomes something else altogether. It’s like a cartoon version of that Radiohead song “Fitter Happier”. And while the animation starts of simple, it quickly escalates to colors and patterns that might make you have seizures.

“Collision” shows us a variety of patters and symbols from the Islamic culture enmeshed with imagery of the American flag in dizzy, kaleidoscopic patterns with background noises that, at first glance, sound like fireworks, but could possibly be guns or bombs. “Astronauts”, one of the cg cartoons, follows two silly and not-so-bright astronauts in their outer-space hijinks.

“Carlitopolis” is bizarre and interesting; about a man who performs a trio of illogical tests on his mouse, Carlito, this cartoon will have you laughing in surprise. “Versus”, another cg effort, is about two teams island-bound of samurai desperate to conquer the tiny piece of territory between them. It’s cute and funny. “Tyger”, based on William Bake’s poem, is one of the more visually interesting and attention-getting piece. The puppets, lighting and music make it seriously cool.

Bill Plimpton has two shorts here – “Guide Dog”, a sequal to the Oscar nominated “Guard Dog” and “Shuteye Hotel”. Both are typical Plympton at his best, and while “Guide Dog” has more straightforward humor, “Shuteye Hotel” pokes fun at a lot of traditional scary stories.

Now, don’t get me wrong – there are bad shorts here, too. “No Room for Gerald” had me literally yawning (quite a task, considering it was under five minutes), “One D” was downright obnoxious (though it had a promising premise), “Learn Self Defense” was outright stupid, and “Dreams and Desires” was plain annoying.

Special features include interviews with a handful of the contributing cartoonists, an introduction to The Maxx, and a collection of text interviews with some of the animators. The last feature is a real yawn, but the other two are mildly interesting.

For the most part, the DVD is pretty good, especially for cartoon fans with short attention spans. It would be a good DVD to whip out for company; it allows for chit-chat and the themes change quickly enough to be constantly interesting, even in the bad bits.

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